Complementation in cytoplasmic petite mutants of yeast to form respiratory competent cells.

Complementation has been observed in cytoplasmic respiratory deficient yeast cells (petites) to yield respiratory competent diploids. This successful demonstration depended on the use of spontaneous petites of recent origin and on crosses involving all possible apirwise combinations between the many different petite isolates of opposite mating type. The possibility of deletion of a single unique region of yeast mitochondrial DNA as the initial lesion in petite formation has been eliminated by using strains isogenic for their mitochondrial DNA.